(Yicai Global) March 27 -- Bank of China Ltd., one of the country’s four largest state-owned commercial banks, will pump CNY30 billion (USD4.8 billion) into the development of the winter sports over the next six years as it looks to increase participation ahead of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The bank will run three campaigns between now and 2024 to promote the Games, public winter sports and development of the sector, state-run China News Service quoted Chairman Chen Siqing as saying. He hopes to see 100 million more Chinese citizens participating in winter sports by the end of the crusade.

China won its bid to host the 24th Winter Olympics back in 2015, and will hold events in the capital Beijing and neighboring Zhangjiakou city in Hebei province. The government has been working ever since to promote winter sports across the country, the report added.

The country aims to have 50 million people participating and 300 million people involved in winter sports by 2025, according to a plan devised by the General Administration of Sport in 2016. It hopes the sector will be worth CNY1 trillion (USD159 billion) by then.